The Witch of the Riddle House
by LuciusBelyakov
Summary: My first fanfic. The fortunes and misfortunes of Merope Gaunt. Starts the day her family goes to Azkaban, covers her star-crossed love and ends with her downfall. Caution: abuse and death. Was there anything else in Merope's life? Rating will up one day.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: The words are all mine, but the world and the peoples who walk around in it are borrowed.

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><p><strong>The Witch of the Riddle House<strong>

I slid their wands from up under their pillows after they went to bed. I tied them up with mine till the three were just one. They said I was a squib. This was the moment of truth, time to see what I was made of. Mudblood or the real thing? If I was a witch after all then something would have to come out of one of these three wands.

I didn't make a sound when I did it. I was gonna call my Papa's name when I cursed him. I wanted him to know what happened and for him to know it was me killin' him, but be just a second too late to stop it.

If I couldn't get a thing out of any one of these damn wands here I'd hit them both of them two with the first thing I picked up, rack them in the head and be done with it.

I got a ways from the bed. I had to get both of them at the same time, my first shot was the only one I was gonna get. If it worked but I just got one of em then whoever was next would wake up from the mess of the spell… and call the snakes on me.

I pictured back when I was six and Papa said I ought to be "drawn and quartered." Snakes rolled around my arms and legs, then got tight as belts and took me up in the air. Morfin did it, he's the one who told the snakes to. But it was Papa who wanted it, his command.

"Avada…"

I waited for Morfin to stop kicking in his sleep so I could make it fly straight and hit him dead square. Morfin was the one who I learned the killer's curse from, back when animals came around the house. If they tried to come up on the porch and talk, he'd pop out from up under the stairs and say these words…

"Kedav…"

And they'd all fall down like this...

But before I put the last letters on the curse the room lit up on its own. Not green like the spell light, but bright… like the sun. I looked around and I saw some man's face, and then another one back in the corner of the room where it'd been dark. I couldn't kill nobody after I saw them two, my heart froze where it was, missing some beats. My breath was cold inside me, and I thought I felt my papa's Bowie knife squeezing my chest.

Wizards from the government stood around the room in a circle. Their wands were pointed over at our bed. Bout' half of them still shined with fresh "lumos" spells.

He said they would come, that official. Come by if they did what they done to him, if they didn't stop stabbing him. I knew he was real. I see things Papa and Morfin say ain't there sometimes. Even when a rock comes upside my head from one of em so I see straight, it's still there, I just say it's gone so Papa won't pound my skull more. I see the stuff that ain't even there extra more 'matter of fact when he's breaking me.

That one who came to see us…Ogden, he didn't have to do none of the things he did for me. Me. He fixed my pot like it was nothing, kept asking about me, put a charm on my neck so Papa didn't snap it in half when he was squeezing my throat shut. May Glinda the Good Witch of the South have some mercy on him. He talked in this nice voice like the kind I hear coming out of Tom's radio box. It was one of the best days of my life at first. I hear about kings and angels, God and doctors when mugs pass by (Dear God I hear about the most, when Papa puts his cruciatus on them.) That stranger was like one of them, something good, a saver of things.

And Papa cut the smile off of his face. And I did nothing, let him catch him and watched him bleed. As if holding back my tears was doing something. I thought I'd do something about it tonight though.

I didn't go check on him after they left him for dead. I figured he was too, and didn't want to go look and see, see how the light had left his eyes. No, that wasn't the real reason… there was one more.

More of Ogden's friends were coming on in through the doorway, walking without making sound. They were going to see that someone got their comeuppance. I looked over at the quiet feet. Heard "Finite Incantatem," and the sounds that should've been there just a minute ago rushed right back into the room.

A long song of words started up, everyone drawing in the air with their fingers while they mumbled a spell I'd never hear before. They could've set a dragon on Papa and Morfin, it wouldn't have mattered, they'd keep on laying in the bed dripping with firewhiskey. Some red doors made out of metal built themselves all around them just fresh out of the air. It all turned into a box with buttons going up and down the side, and they got trapped in that box. You could hear them snoring inside of what looked like a birthday present on the mattress.

"Good work, miss! You disarmed them, we appreciate your cooperation." said one of the people. I was so afraid of him. I would've yelled, but it just couldn't come out, I bet there was a scream in my eyes if they looked good, I had to be wild-eyed.

So close… somebody cares about Merope.

I'd have said I was guilty too, all he had to do was ask me and I'd nod my head yeah. I felt like I wasn't there. I'm not there...

"…Testimony may be needed…"

Most of em went flying out the window on their broomsticks up at the moon.

"… under a provisional summons until the trial's conclusion…"

My wand looked so innocent sitting in my hand.

"Miss, you need not include your own wand."

I told him no with just the shake of my head.

Then I bit back a laugh, you almost got me! The bite turned into a smile all the way up to the apples I have in my cheeks, and I didn't care one little bit. What could he do to me for laughin? I was ready to laugh my ass off in just a second or two, but then I saw Morfin sitting up in the bed grinning. He pointed at me with his wand and snakes came out of my mouth. I scratched at my mouth, but there was nothing in it. He wasn't there when I looked back, the snakes neither. All that was in my hands was a bit of blood from where I'd cut my own face.


	2. Chapter 2

Couldn't stay in the house without em. It felt like Papa could get me even all the way from the wizard jail. So I ran out on the grass, let my feet dance on the blades some, that'd help. A blue moon was out, the Hare one too. Mama wrote down all the different types of moons there was. Hare was my favorite, and the Mead moon, then Dyad. Wine moons too. That's about all I had of her, those moons of hers.

Once I found these pieces of paper in a corner of a drawer in a desk upstairs. Little tiny papers that people miss when they throw out stuff, that way you can hide stuff, I'd hid so many things I'd stole from Tom, doing like mama. On em there was so many drawings of the moon. I knew it wasn't Papa's, he didn't write like that. And Morfin couldn't write. So I figured out whose it was.

It was beautiful. The drawing in the corners looked real, like a camera made them. The words in her handwriting were long with curves and swirls tying into each other. I never told no one about the curvy writing and the perfect drawing, Papa would tear them up the second he knew. I buried out back with a shovel. I can look at now that the coast is clear.

It was good to be out late. The scars on my leg from the last time he told me not to were all gone pretty much. I guess it'd been a real long time since I played outside at night, my scars didn't get gone too quick. Now as a matter of fact I couldn't think of the last time I played at anything, inside or out, at morning or at night. I had to play a game now that I was all freed up.

I smelled fruits everywhere like they were falling off a tree and could be picked. And rain, I smelled that too. Rain I never knew to smell that way, it was so sweet it could've drunk it drink, a glass of ice pumpkin juice. And there were flowers too. But they'd say I was dumber than a troll, none of that was outside. Nothing wet, no roses, no cherries. But I could smell it all as if it was there, just gone invisible.

I looked up at the stars, breathing so hard trying to get more of that nice smell. Then I heard someone singing, sounded like from far away. I looked around getting scared again and figured I was probably better off inside…but that scent. It was perfume! That's what it was… and it belonged to some girl of Tom's. That's why she's singing, she'd sing for him!

I felt hot. The heat was in my head, and then it felt like sewing needles were sticking me up under my arms. My throat got filled up like I was swallowing a stone. Then I turned cold all over again, my arms had something icy inside of them. I could feel the teeny hairs on me, they wouldn't go and lie down. The heat came on again, running down my back. Nothing smelled sweet. Something stretched my eyes, making water run down my face.

I picked a rock from up off the ground, tossed it in the air a good few times and caught it, then ran down the hill, following the lady who smelled like a garden. I put my arms out like an airy-plain so I wouldn't loose my step, it'd be too late if I went down slow or around the hill. I had to see him, and not the back of his head as he went on his way with some woman, I was gonna see his face.

I hoped they weren't married! That'd be my dumb luck, before he met me he'd go and get married.

I cut my hands and feet open on some rocks when I jumped off at the bottom. I hid my hand inside of my dress, squeezing it tight while I was lookinf every which way for them. The blood started showing right in the place where my heart was at, an arrow might as well have been sticking out of me.

I leaned against the side of the hill catching breath, being quiet, listening for her singing, waiting for it to tell me which way to go, which way to Tom.

The song was over in the wood across the trail.

I ran. Even when I got into thickets where the trees and its branches cut me and held me back and put holes in my dress I kept on running. I just tried to step with a soft step like a cat, so they wouldn't hear me and get scared off. Morfin was the master of that. He could run, skip, crawl, fly, jump, trot like any animal he ever saw, just had to see it once and he moved the same ways as they did. He could change into em too, never took no potion for it, just his wand was enough. Didn't need to be just one like an animagus is, he was anything he felt like being.

I couldn't even hear her music anymore the beat of my heart was so loud deep inside me, so was my breath, as much as I tried to hold it in. But I still knew where they were somehow. Didn't even stop to listen, just knew it.

All of a sudden light came out of the trees ahead. They must've had lanterns. I couldn't see. It was burning my eyes, a sun bursting all yellow. I covered my face, it was bad as something being in my eye. Then I cried, damnit I was giving myself away.

When I lowered my arms from my eyes the light had got dim. There were some black things leaving the woods, flying. Looked like a little crow or two. Then I heard the music, humming up again.

When I stepped forward I saw that they weren't birds and nothin about them was black! They were tiny painted people. And it was their voice, not Tom's darling. They didn't even sing, not like that. It was a buzz like a bee makes, but in a pretty way, not that zipping stuff. I liked it better than bells, it sounded more like that, a bell.

The whole of the woods was shiny with little specs of blue and white. It was nicer than even a holiday tree. I couldn't see what made the lights. Everything just looked covered in dust, jewel dust.

There were long strings coming down from the trees, spider silk's going down like white little ropes they could climb up and down. At the ends each string wove into a knot, I'd seen something look this way before, the shape reminded of how a big stone would hang at the bottom of a high fashion laveliere necklace. Every muggle girl wanted a laveliere so they could flapper, even the radio will tell ya that, they get them on Christmas, if they have someone like Tom then they get one. The tree lavelieres blew back and forth real slow, kicking up the dust on the ground.

I watched one of them open all up in its, what I thought was gonna be a balloon stretched its way out of there. Ribbons of blue rushed out and crumpled onto the grass. A fairy had just come alive. The heavy blue wings were piled on top of him while he laid there still sleepy, could've favored a cape on him. He was a little boy with dark blue skin like his wings and big pretty black curls, eyes real purple. Pretty! One day I'm gonna have a little boy like that, me and Tom.

The way the wings came out of the cocoon reminded me of when I saw a muggle flying one day. The muggle flew away with a white bag taking them through the air. I think they jumped out of one of them airy-plains. I told Papa about all the magic they had done, that they _did_ like wizards too! I mainly remember seeing those stars afterward. I could hear his voice though, and the sound of the belt as it smacked. I was dead to that hurtin. I felt my skin shaking and just about to tear from how hard he was pounding, but I couldn't really feel the burn at least.

Butterfly-looking wings landed on my nose, some black wings with yellow spots on them. A little lady without no clothes on was sitting on the tip of my nose, red hair coming down to her knees. She knocked on my eyebrow with her small hand, maybe its what fairy doors look like, caterpillars or something. I couldn't help but laugh.

I didn't put my hands over my mouth as I would've done yesterday, I laughed like there wasn't no penalty to pay for it. I laughed harder when I thought about it and remembered that there wasn't none! No more of any of that any morr. Then I couldn't help but cry. Don't know why I was doing it. Maybe I cried 'cause I figured them rotting in a dungeon. Maybe I cried since Tom wasn't there like I thought he'd be. Or since I was alone now, and it was forever.

I covered myself with my arms and pretended like someone had me, that they were loving me. That crying drove the fairy off. She could've drowned I guess, so she didn't have a choice but to fly the coop.

I went to my knees and put my head on the ground. The cold against my ears was nice. I held my legs. My red hands smearing my legs till they weren't white no more. "What you been doin?" he would've been hollering at me. Ants crawled across my thighs, while fairies walked passed my lazy, stupid carcass, going about their business, carrying torches to light where they was goin.

I couldn't help but keep shaking. I wasn't warm, but it wasn't 'cause I was cold. I just couldn't hold my body together no more. I laid there crying over the stones, watching the parade of bugs and fairies.

I put my hand back over my heart touching inside my dress, painting my bare cleavage with the blood on my fingers.

I'd calmed down though. That smell was back again, the pretty smell, the smell of them flowers.

A bunch of my hair got in my eyes, but I didn't care any at all. The trail of roses I could never track down worked on me the way catnip does if you ever watch a kitty cat going mad for some. I spread out in the dirt on my back, the ground so sweet, colder than even a icebox. I drug my arms and legs back and forth through the dirt, looking up at the stars while I did it. I made the print of a fairy with my body in the earth, I treated it no different than if it was snow.


	3. Chapter 3

My bones were like I'd been asleep for 50 years. Would my hair have grown long when I got hold of a mirror? Would it be all grey? Would there be any left? There was some muggle story about a bloke that happened to. I don't remember how I heard it. The kids that worked on the estate down there would come up here sometimes to see the Gaunt witches or just to try and get away from they chores, they were just like me. For all I cared I was a muggle. I probably heard it from one of them, since we use to play with each other.

Though I wanted to think I slept like a baby, I bet I didn't sleep for five minutes. I knew what was going on around me almost the whole night long. I could make out the stars of Cancer the crab, till she started disappearing. White moths flew past her, trying to get up to the full moon, it was the only good light left right then, nobody for miles had lit a candle.

Even when I closed my eyes I was still awake, I didn't go nowhere. I could hear grasshoppers make their rattle, I could taste my own lips and feel fairies trying to steal my clothes, then get scared off when I almost rolled over on them each time I was bout to drift off. I still smelled the roses too, close as if I was laying there with a bouquet of em in my hands. Every muggle has to have a bouquet when they go to their church and get themselves married and all big with a kid.

I did go to sleep once though. I dreamed I saw an albatross flapping its wings right above me. I only saw its back as it was flying away. I say it's an albatross, but as a matter of fact it was a dove. For some reason in that crazy dream of mine it just "felt" like an albatross, that word kept getting in my head. But I don't know what it means.

In the dream I laid there right on the ground, just like things have been. Everything looked like it always did, it looked so, so the way it always does around here that at the Gaunt manor I would've thought I _was_ still awake... until I saw that albatross, just 'a hovering 'bove my chest. Real quick it went away from me and disappeared up in the clouds. I felt real peaceful.

I'd be ready to get up and go back to my house soon. I liked the sound of that, _my_ house.

Every fairy was gone. The eggs they hatched from had got all over the grass, making it sparkle, it was pretty alright, little fallen stars everywhere was what it looked like at least.

The sun was good, candlelight red, that red. Someone's rooster was making a lot of noise. I couldn't help but smile 'cause the basilisk snakelets Morfin was rearing in the basement couldn't touch me now, not if they heard his crowing. If Papa was still here he'd have run over there and wrung its neck till its eyes popped out. If he hadn't been so old he'd have done it to those dirt-vein farmers next door too. No, I'm just being mean. I never saw him do that. By the time I was born Morfin said he'd stopped.

White petals fell down on the ground. They was cold and they was swet, touching my hands on the grass, it finally made me move. I looked up and saw an great big atch over top of me. An arch with white hanging roses going up and down, in and out the iron. I cried out loud I got so scared when I looked up and saw. How did it just get there just like that? Who made it? How come I didn't hear it?

More and more petals came down from that arch. I watched them, but couldn't find a thing to say, I just held my heart like I always did when I got upset. 'Couldn't breath, my heart hammered on the chest. It must've been more scared than I was, it looked like it was gonna fight its way out my body, turn and run for it.

I stood up as it kept on pouring down, I just about fell over trying to just get to my feet. More petals fell than it seemed like there was flowers for them to come from. They dressed up the ground till you would've thought it was snow, I swear on Salazar Slytherin's lost tomb.

I put my hand out so careful, the way I would've done if I had to touch some lion. I just didn't know what I was about to put my hand on. The raining petals filled up my palm, so good-looking. They were mmy handful of pearls. Everything in the whole world fell away, it was just me and the arch. So slow…

I couldn't think of a thing, not even about where this rose place had come from. It just felt like my head wasn't on straight after that. I'd only ever felt this way before once, Morfin had gotten up close to one of Tom's parties. The people there dressed up as all kinds of different things he said, fairies (nothing like the ones we got here) and mermaids, wizards. Morfin walked right in like one of them dirt veins, didn't put no special robe on, just went like he was. They acted like they couldn't tell a difference.

He took away one of their guests, some fellow he said was fallin down out in the gardens. He brought him back here and bit him to death. That was when he was shaping his teeth trying to get fangs.

Told me the man begged him to take anything. He was much obliged and took his wacket after he'd finished him. He walked around in that thing ever since. Papa would have beat him until he was dead for wearing something from a mug, he just couldn't catch him, no one could, he was too fast. Last time Morfin shot some fiendfyre back at Papa and that was the end of that, acted like he couldn't even see that new wacket from that day on after.

Inside of the wacket pockets there was some muggle galleons with muggle faces on em and little white pieces of paper rolled up like tubes. Stuffed in the paper was all of this mashed green stuff. He showed them to me and shared. It was this that was interesting; we found all kinds of uses for that. We'd set fire to it and breathe it in and it would make time slow down, just like it was did right now.

I stared at my hand stretched out to the arch. In that arch I saw two people, a lady and a man. They had their backs to me, a lady in white and a man in black. They had each other hand in hand, and were pointing up at the sky, making a wish on whatever they saw up there. I knew they were happy, and I knew who they were…


	4. Chapter 4

This was my mother's flower garden. She had gardens of roses. Papa had cut em all down after she was gone. Morfin had talked about these same roses on a arch when I asked him 'bout her. If these had looked like anything else, I'd have known I was seeing wrong. It ain't even strange that roses dead for more than 15 years would all of a sudden pop back to life… not if they were hers. Just like Morfin could work the animals, she could do the same with plants. 'Heard sometimes she'd just be walking and flowers would come up wherever she walked. You could see little seeds rooting all up in her footprint. They could grow tall and make whole forests. Other times they'd stay little, and she'd take em out and put em right in her hair and make a crown, or let em get dry and sew them into the dresses she wore, put them on the tips of her shoes instead of buckles. Papa told me all of that when he was sitting in his chair too drunk to beat my tail. I was too young to remember about the flowers on my own. Maybe that wasn't even real, he was drinking. I'd been drunk before too, I knew what it was like.

Morfin said she'd run off and left us. 'Said Papa had been givin' her a love potion, but didn't make it right one day and it wore off like she'd never had none. When the magic was all gone she was scared of him, didn't know who he was no more, and didn't know how she got in this house. He heard em arguing, it woke him up outta bed.

It was storming that night, everything was coming down, lightning, thunder, rain, wind. He looked out the window and saw her running out the door in a nightgown just screaming. And there was Papa crying and calling her name trying to tell her he was her husband.

That ain't Papa's side of the story, not to me. Said I killed her, said that she died the day I was born. I might've believed that, sounds exactly just like something I'd end up doing, messing stuff even before I got born. But I remember her… I saw enough of her to know she didn't die right then. I know this face that the light comes down on, looks younger than mine with some waving light brown hair. She dances on our wood floor, but someone picked up the stuff on it, so the floor doesn't look just the same- but I still know it. She dances on grass, but ain't wearing shoes just like I won't. She holds her hand out to someone so short she's got to bend over to get her face near em, too much of smile though. Papa would've made sure you stopped smiling if you grinned that hard 'round him

He said I looked like her but with all of her worst features on, mother looked good he said, didn't have that squib face. She did look real good, if she looked like the lady I believe she was. Didn't think she looked like me none though. Sometimes I'd draw pictures of other ways my mother could look, in case I was wrong, draw them in the sand. No matter what I drew Morfin came by and kicked the picture back to dust.

I saw the smile again, through the veil on the face of the lady under the arch. The people in love were mama and papa.

I should've felt good seeing my mother. It's not that I didn't, I couldn't even say what it meant to me. I liked what I saw, but it made me worry. I don't know why.

When I looked back at my arch there was nobody up under it, just me and the roses. They'd stopped raining on me now. Then a wind came up outta nowhere and blew the flowers laying cross the ground away.

When the wind whistled I saw myself where my mother had been with that same smile on, but maybe a little wider, more of a laugh than a smile. I was stealing a rose from off of the arch, looking back over the hill. Even I had to admit I had the sneaking look of a bandit about me, a pirate. I clutched that rose close. It seemed as important as the elder wand from the story of The Three Brothers in my rhymes, Beadle the Bard. My eyes were some different woman's though. They were beauties! But they weren't no normal eyes. They were colorful and sparkling, somethin wild was back there, snakes and cats have eyes like this. Her eyes stared at me, it was a brave person's face.

My heart fluttered for a second, but I found my breath and got real calm. We looked at each other and something happened right there between the two of us. I felt my heart making the drumbeat against my body all over again, it wasn't loud or hard, i just was there. The look she put on me made me feel I was something more than I was. She looked at me with some respect.

She disappeared, that thing that could've been me. I watched her body fade, someone was erasing her. I watched her turn into just traces. She held out a rose, it was a red rose, and bigger than all the rest. Soon the only part of her left was that arm with the rose, and then that was gone!

I looked down at my feet where the climbing roses knotted round the legs of the arch. They spilled off onto the grass into tangles of briars, knife bushes that went as high as my waist.

I looked at the fat green thorns. They shined so hard. I stared at them, you'd have thought they were talking to me I looked so hard back at them. I put my hand over one and let it get real near it, but never let it stick me. You won't stick me!

Then I put my thumb on one side of it, my pointing finger on the other and ripped it right off. 'Stuck it in the apron I was wearing and made off with it. The thorn of a rose could make someone fall in love with you. It was the first thing you had to have if you were gonna make Amortentia, the queen bee of all the love potions...

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><p>Author's note: I've got a 5th chapter ready, but I'm going to have to hold it hostage until I get a couple of reviews. I need to know if someone's listening or not. There's no point in putting it up just for me to read.<p> 


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's note:** Hi all, for the moment it might just be me and PenBeatsSword, but I'm just delighted to know that people are reading me and made it this far. This story's a lot of work. I'm working on chapter 6 now, won't take me long. Anyway same rules as before, new chapters available PER REQUEST. You don't have to review if that's not your thing, you can send me a message. I just need to know that you want me to keep going. Enjoy!

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><p>There's a rhyme made by Mr. Beedle the Bard and Lady Cypress Cesstang.<p>

_Where beauty is wild-grown_

_Hidden pain is sometime known_

_Find the point that grows from the pink_

_Dreams come true when its put in drink_

I ran up the hill out of breath. The _pink _means rose, like a rose-colored gown. Thorns are the pain, the _point _that grows out of the rose.

I ran all the way back home saying those beautiful, beautiful rhymes over and over. I kicked rocks on the path out of my way, and said the next part of the poem.

_Add greens turning white and red_

_And past loves are fully shed_

_Watch how the cup brightly shines_

_And swells with scents found divine_

Curly ivy shot around my fingers, it was trying to stop me from coming home to my own house! I got hangnails from having to claw it off of the house so's I could get to the door. Red spots of blood were on my hands, in the fingernails. Everything was just like the peppermint in the song. They're a _green _plant like this ivy, but make a _red and white _candy. My hands could be the white, my blood was definitely red.

First I slapped the ivy hard as I could. Then I swung open the door to the cottage with sore hands. That ivy had been snapped to nothing the other day, when Morfin had turned into a cat and climbed up and down it and fell, but it could grow back overnight. It had a spell on from a long time ago, back before I was born I think. It liked it when people got hurt- the ivy; my blood made it part its way. Morfin bought this...

_Hatch no beast of reds and burns_

_Broken shells break hearts in turn_

_Put in the mix his white whole_

_To command another's soul_

I almost tripped over the junk Morfin left in the floor. I held onto the wall to keep from falling. I started singing again as I ran through the house with my arms out, I could've tripped and broken my leg, but I wouldn't mind, not if I…

_Take the moon and crush it down_

_And earth's delights will be found_

_In the heart it will inspire_

_A daily-lit magic fire_

I tore the house apart looking for Papa's spell book so it could explain the elixir to me. Even though I knew all of what went in it that wouldn't make no difference, you had to know what you did. That's what Papa will tell you sets us apart from any other living thing. Said a mudblood can learn a few magic tricks and a parrot will learn to talk, but they don't create not magic, they just copy what they're shown by some old blood traitor.

He'd leave that book in plain sight most days. Leave it out on the kitchen table or set it right in front of my door, so it'd be there looking at me first thing when I woke up. Probably hoping I'd slip and fall on it if it was in my way, give him an excuse to break my arm.

Said he'd kill me if I so much as touched it. My squib fingers better not go and stain his "artifact," it was our kin's- the greatest wizard ever, the dark. I'd be the one doin the killin if he came through that door and tried to take this book from me now. Kill him with some of his own spells, with the words right out of his own book.

Today of all days was the day he wasn't playing with me. He hadn't put it in one of the usual places of distinction.

I took out my wand, dropping it a few times. Yeah, I was scared of using it. The wand's a mirror to what a witch is. I didn't have to use any spells after all to get what I wanted, it all happened thanks to my lucky stars. It's late for April Fool's day. Fortune wants to keep the game fun. I had to pick up where I started last night. She knows I can't make no magic happen. I'm nothing, I do nothing, I'm such a fool, I'm a nobody, from nowhere.

I managed to cough out the accio charm, but I probably said it too soft for the book to hear me calling. Nothing in the room even so much as rattled. I felt the black eye I would've had if he'd been here to see me do wrong. I held the place in my mouth where he knocks out teeth at.

They'd have been proud if that book had even come halfway across the room. I deserved the extra kick from Morfin, he always would help Papa.

I didn't bother to try again, it would've only made me feel worse. Instead I just went from room to room all day. I'd find it like a squib finds things or muggles. 'Didn't bother to eat nothing, I didn't earn any food.

When I came in I was so glad I was ready to dance, the dancing part in me died every hour. There was nothing left, nothing but the "tights," the feeling of something tightening in on me, ropes that wrapped me up and just kept on knotting, choking. All the time I could've sworn I was bleeding from it all, I'd wake up at night I feel my body and think I was covered and blood, I'd go on screaming for hours sometimes.

After dark I went to light some candles so I could use them to help me while I looked, (I knew I couldn't make any lights come on with just my wand). I went and sat in the kitchen, fell into a chair and smeared my hair over my face. I dug my nails in, wishing I could tear it off. Maybe I should, a kitchen's full on knives.

As I went staring up at the ceiling I heard whispers, the voices of a lot of men talking at once. That sound killed my voice, deep inside I knew I had to be quiet. I get that same warning to shut up when I hear the noise someone makes taking off their belt or unzipping their pants.

Had the muggle-loving wizards that took my Papa and brother come back for the last in the bloodline of the "great" house of Gaunt? Or maybe it was the muggles! After all these years they might've been tired of putting up with Papa and Morfin, and had come here to hang someone. Our noble father Salazar Slytherin told us about the hangings and the burnings.

That would be luck, Lady Luck sure would think this was funny. The ones they'd come to get weren't here, the only day they hadn't been in their whole lives. And I'd have to do in their place.

My only friends were Tom and Ogden, I'd know if it was Tom, and Ogden ain't coming back. There was no one coming up to this house that could have done me good.

Then I thought, _what was the difference? _Could getting killed be so bad? I've been through worse. If worse came right down to worst I could make myself a ghost and visit Tom sometimes. But I probably don't even have that much magic in me. They say you get a choice, but whoever put the choice to people probably wouldn't give me none. Why I should I get special help?

Then I thought … they're back! They busted out of the jail and came back here! The thought of that made me pick up my wand. Either I'll kill them or they'll kill me. Anyway I won't have to live with them no more.

I heard one of the men scream something so strange, and knew I didn't know the people coming in, never heard his voice before.

Scared as I was I still wasn't gonna let someone kill me. I glanced back and forth around the room, waving my wand too slow.

I said it, "You are on my land. I am the witch that all of England has heard their stories of. The founders of my house are the Salazar Slytherin and Cadmus Peverell. We are the Gaunts. Its all true, we move things without touching em, make animals do what we want without training em, and we can make bad things happen to people who are mean to us... we can make em hurt if we want. Who are you?"

There was no word back. But I didn't hear sounds from people running away, they were in the house with me.

The lights went out all of a sudden, just sucked out of the house. Dear Morgana Le Faye, I was fighting wizards…


	6. Chapter 6

**The author talks:** Hi all, I have some bad news. My computer crashed this weekend unfortunately and I've lost some work, the upcoming chapters to this story were among the losses. So I no longer have anything remaining of this besides what happened to already be up here on Fanfiction. I will have to rewrite them, but as there has been almost no sign of activity here in this story, its not a high priority and is officially put on hiatus. However, if you are interested in hearing more about my adventures of Merope Gaunt then please write a review (I don't like to beg for them, but I need to know if you are interested in me continuing or not in this case.) You can also send me a private message instead if you prefer. I don't ignore my readers, so if you want to the story to live again I'll see that it happens somehow.

Until then,

-Belyakov


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